Abstract

The idea of ‘exchange’ in Service Dominant Logic’s (S-D logic) Foundational Premise (FP) 1 (service is ‘exchanged’ for service) has retained the residual transactional concept from Goods Dominant Logic (G-D logic) as the basis of understanding of service in S-D logic. This has limited the processual understanding in S-D logic; in particular, the need to understand value as a process rather than an output. This study meets that need in presenting a holistic understanding of the individual’s valuing process for S-D logic. An interdisciplinary search of literature beyond the discipline of marketing on the term ‘valuing’ was conducted in the fields of psychology, education, and systems thinking.

This study investigates how students with disabilities realise value through study-related support-seeking experiences. Sixteen students with disabilities, who were enrolled in higher educational services in New Zealand, participated in this study. A phenomenographic approach was applied to understand the variations in ways that students with disabilities experienced and understood the support-seeking phenomenon. The variations and similarities in meanings were abstracted as categories of description. Four categories of description of Knowing, Understanding, Judging, and Acting represented participants’ conceptions of experiencing the support-seeking phenomenon. Each category of description outlined both the variations in meanings and the structural aspects of experiencing the phenomenon. The four categories of description were logically displayed in an outcome space - a hermeneutical spiral - to portray the different ways of experiencing the support-seeking phenomenon. The hermeneutic spiral provides a holistic understanding of the valuing process for S-D logic’s view of service as a process. Hence, value is not a perceptual state at an endpoint of time, rather it is a here-and-now snapshot ‘taking stock’ in a dynamic process.

The second contribution this study makes to S-D logic relates to the processual understanding of value. In the process of valuing, the participants were experiencing and understanding the support-seeking phenomenon in relation to their mental acts, or structural awareness, at a moment of time. Thus, participants appreciate, and act upon their thoughts. This builds on the S-D logic’s Foundational Premise (FP) 10 that the beneficiary always uniquely and phenomenologically determines value. Specifically, the second contribution of this research relates directly to the insights revealed by the phenomenography method into variations in participants’ experiences of support-seeking. The research provides sound empirical support for valuing as a dynamic process, which extends the FP10 notion of value as a static valuation at a particular point in time.

Along with the S-D logic contributions, this study contributes phenomenography as a research method that is little known in marketing. This method has the potential to understand the variations of individuals’ realities as experienced. The practical implication of this study adds to knowledge of support-seeking behaviour as an avenue for businesses to engage in people’s appreciation and be of service to them.